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Poiesis: Manufacturing in Classical Athens by Peter Acton

By Peter Acton

Poiesis brings jointly archaeological unearths, historic texts and inscriptions, fresh scholarly research, and the services of contemporary craftsmen to enquire each recognized side of Athens' production actions. although Athenians ate up nice amounts of synthetic items, and round 1/2 the citizens of classical Athens might be proven to were based for survival on production in a few shape, the topic has been virtually thoroughly ignored by means of historians. The ebook attracts at the analytical suggestions of latest company economics--supply and insist, pageant thought, and risk-return analysis--to clarify occasions and offerings. production operations are labeled in an unique framework that explains why yes segments have been fitted to the only craftsman and others to groups of slaves, and deduces profits capability established upon limitations to access and aggressive differentiation. the result's a brand new and clean perspective on how Athenian society operated that enhances political, army, and literary views, with very important and infrequently outstanding implications. between different insights the research indicates how fragmented constructions have been basic to the workings of Athenian democracy by way of permitting voters to complement their source of revenue via informal production job.

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Some slaves undertook liturgies (Dem. 4; Isoc. 9). ) Ath. pol. 84 Finley’s observations on limited rights tell us nothing about whether the transactions that took place in classical Athens can usefully be described in economic terms. It is quite conceivable that Athens had an efficiently functioning and profit-based economy, even if the structure of society meant many of the actors played different roles in it than they would today. Whether or not particular activities were economically rational, and whether economic Engen (2007).

72 Both Aristophanes (Pax. 1198–1202; Eq. 644–45) and Xenophon (Vect. 6) understood how supply and demand affect prices and the latter describes the science of economics in almost exactly the same way as Alfred Marshall (Oec. 73 And even if the ancients were ignorant of basic economic concepts, it is a very large step to conclude that they could not act in an economically understandable way. We do not assess Tiger Woods’s golfing skills by his ability to describe the ergonomic principles of his swing.

Com/company-profiles/mcdonalds (accessed Feb. 16, 2012). 145 146 32 { Poiesis beds, might have had longer production chains than, say, potteries but not by much. 148 Division of labor does nothing to explain why potteries never seem to have operated with more than one team, while shield factories employed perhaps a dozen. ”149 Once a firm has exhausted the benefits of division of labor (in the case of the pin factory, Smith thought the optimum number of workers was about 10), then if it is to grow to a size larger than the minimum required for efficient production, it must capture a larger share of the market than competitors who can achieve equal productivity levels by matching its factory layout.

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